9. Redwall - Brian Jacques
You'd be hardpressed to find a 90s (or 80s) kid who didn't grow up on Brian Jacques' Redwall series. He managed to bring twenty-two novels in the world before he passed away in 2011. Sure, they ended up rather formulaic and predictable (riddles! feasts! overly simplistic images of good and evil!), but as adventure tales they were top notch. Not a round of book reports or presentations in my middle school language arts classes went by without at least two or three projects on one of the Redwall installments. There is a mighty vein of nostalgia to be tapped with this series. The big question is: what's the proper way to film woodland creatures talking and eating and going on adventures? Traditional animation, like the TV series from 1999? Stop-motion? Computer? Would you want Pixar or Studio Ghibli to pick it up? There are so many delicious possibilities with a film version of Redwall, almost as many as there have been past attempts and rumors at making it a movie. And considering that Jacques turned down a movie deal for his other series, Castaways of the Flying Dutchmen, because he'd prefer children read the books instead of watching a movie, maybe it's appropriate that a Redwall movie forever remain in development hell. That doesn't mean that a good Redwall movie wouldn't be a lot of fun, though.